that wraps up the hour for me. can you watch or listen on siriusxm radio, tunein, msnbc.com/now, msnbc app and apple tv and you can always find me on social media, twitter, facebook, instagram, snapchat and linkedin. thanks for watching. "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york. former fbi director jim comey on the offense today in the wake of a brand-new report from the inspector general at the department of justice. comey today suggesting he's owed an apology for those who defamed him saying he belonged in jail for declassifying information. he insisted he would not do anything different. comey today, i don't need a public apology from those who defamed me but a quick message i'm sorry we lied about you

would be nice. and those two spent two years talking about me going to jail for being a liar and leaker, ask yourselves why you still trust people who gave you bad info for so long, including the president? the choice that's were under scrutiny included sharing a memo comey wrote about his bizarre interactions with donald trump n one of those memos, comey wrote about being asked to take a loyalty oath to donald trump. comey also detailed the president asking him to see to it to let disgraced national security adviser mike flynn go. the substance of those memos about comey's interactions with the president would ult splitly become fodder for congressional testimony shortly after comey's firing. >> i hope, this is the president speaking, i hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, letting flynn go. he is a did guy. i hope you can let this go. those are his exact words, is that correct? >> i took it as a direction. this is the president of the united states saying me alone, i

hope this, i took it as this is what he wants me to do. i didn't obey that, but that's the way i took it. >> inspector general report released he did find comey violated fbi policy by sharing his memos with a personal lawyer. the defining our friend matt miller, doj spokesman and frequent critic of comey described this way, quote, the ig basically faulted comey for speeding on his way to say a fire was coming. but the president and his campaign have come out swinging today, attacking comey with the usual smears. in fact trump falsely accused comey of leaking classified information on at least ten occasions. >> comey, by the way, lied and leaked and also leaked classified information. >> then you see the lying and you see the leaking and you see comey lie to congress, nothing happens. you see him leaking, nothing happens. and this is leaking classified

information. this is leaking really big stuff. lies before congress, which is just about the ultimate. sworn testimony where comey told so much and he leaked, he leaked classified information. well, if somebody on our team leaked classified information, it would be years in jail. >> the accusation of leaking classified information is one of which comey today can claim total exoneration, as the inspector general and his report finds, and i quote, no evidence of this. and that is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. with us from "the new york times" fbi national security reporter adam goldman, "the washington post" white house reporter ashley parker, plus harry litman, former deputy assistant attorney general, former federal prosecutor paul butler and with us at the table, rick stengel, who worked in president obama's state department and is a former managing editor at "time" magazine. ann goldman, let me start with

you, the comey story and trump story, so intertwined, so interconnected that unpacking the ig report requires a little bit of slicing a little bit down all of that connective tissue but what is clear is that the central accusation levied by the president against jim comey that he leaked classified information through his lawyer to your newspaper is not true, not supported by the ig report. >> yes, that's true. the ig came down pretty clearly that we didn't receive classified information from comey. though the ig did say there was spillage of classified information to the lawyers he gave memos to. but that didn't include "the new york times." >> ashley parker, jim comey is the enemy that donald trump can't really function without. i looked at the poll numbers that came out yesterday and it's miraculous to me that somehow donald trump's numbers were higher when he was railing against the deep state, railing against the fbi, railing against jim comey, rod rosenstein and

robert mueller day after day after day, and the president at some cellular level might have an awareness of that because he spent much of the afternoon attacking jim comey. >> yeah, the president is someone who his aides say, and he will admit this himself, is best when he has an enemy, an opponent and often a single opponent. so that's why when, for instance, the mueller report finally wrapped up, there was some question of why is the president still going after mueller? why is he still talking about a witch-hunt? and we saw in that statement that the white house put out today about comey, the first line seems transcribed directly from the president's mouth, calling him, comey is a liar and leaker. this is something the president will take this little tidbit and if history is any indication, he's going to run with it through -- who knows how long,

potentially through 2020. if it turns out to be a good rally line f. it turns out to rouse his base, something maybe going negative on immigration and he can return to comey. >> harry litman, i want to step back for a minute and look at the sweep of history, of what we need. the first 22 months of the he trump presidency did focus, almost exclusively here at least, on this question of collusion with russia and on the president's effort to obstruct the information that robert mueller was conducting. hutch of that was put in motion by what we learned from jim comey's memos? when the ministry is totaled, how big will it be? >> i think it's a moving force and consider the criticism coming from the white house what might have happened, and it's very plausible if these memos had not seen the light of day, if comey left them in the bowels

of the fbi, as hoar wits says he should have. you see how they're fighting tooth and nail to keep anything from coming out. if this hadn't emerged to the american people the whole story line of collusion -- excuse me, obstruction might not have come out. it might have, but that's the real point. and next to that, sort of as matt miller said, the infraction that horowitz railed against today seemed very secondary. >> paul butler, i want to get you on the record, i think if you're in the middle you see the ig coming down and saying that jim comey's behavior violated fbi policies and i think he also writes he violates his employment agreement but if you take harry's response and adam goldman's response, there was no intentional leaking or release of classified information, it would seem that on balance, the public benefit and protection to the institutions of learning what donald trump is doing,

basically asking a sitting fbi director to see it to to let mike flynn go to lie to the fbi and the sitting national security adviser was met by learning what we learned from those memos. >> yeah, that's right. so comey says i'm a patriot, not a criminal. and in fact the inspector general referred this finding to the department of justice, which declined to bring charges. there's three levels of classification of sensitive information, there's top secret and secret, which go to national security and then there's confidential. that's the lowest level. people are really releasing confidential information and comey said he wrote these memos because he wanted fbi high-level officials to know the president's conduct was bizarre at best and criminal at worst, and he was concerned that the president would lie about his interactions with comey. of course, all of those concerns were corroborated by the mueller report. >> adam goldman, i want to ask

you just to sort of explain to our readers this practice is taking contemporaneous memos. i know it's standard inside the federal government, particularly inside law enforcement, but you and colleagues have reported on contemporaneous memos taken by don mcgahn and former chief of staff john kelly around jared and ivanka's security clearances. there's been the reporting obviously of jim comey's memos, which tell an extraordinary story in which the country was gripped by for two years. andy mccabe was known to have taken memos. is there in your view or from your perch, is there more memo taking? is there more salacious material than memos being taken during the trump presidency? >> i would suspect others have taken memos too. i think we saw a good sample of them with the mueller investigation, you know, but we can't be sure. i mean, there could be people keeping private diaries as well, which would be interesting.

nicolle, can i make one other idea about this report -- >> please. >> what's interesting is after the fbi learned about the existence of the other memos, he had given some to his lawyers, they frantically go and collect them and the people surrounding comey, the former general counsel jim baker, lisa paige, andy mccabe, special counsel, pete strzok, top counterintelligence agent, they decide to basically up-class classify some of these emails and move them to confidential. so what struck me is if there's a deep state and they're all part of it, they're not doing comey any favors here. >> let's stay there. that's a good point because horowitz is a household name to i have regular viewer of fox and he's sort of taken on mythical stature. the conservative media as recently as two, three weeks ago around mueller's testimony was reporting this will be much more damaging to jim comey. talk about -- talk about the

impact of horowitz and these sort of maligned and deep state actors basically churning out a product at the end of it that exonerates comey from the most serious allegation being spread about him? >> i mean, i think -- you know, you can debate whether exonerates comey or not. i think what it does do to some level of exonerate the upper echelon to the fbi, who believe if you read the report, they were shocked and surprised by what comey did by giving -- by comey providing the contents of one of those memos that made it to "the new york times" reporter. they were shocked by that. they went through a rigorous classification review and said some of these memos were not properly class fayed and that goes to the credit of the fbi. >> that's a good point, rick stengel. the idea there's some deep state

clubhouse that has harming donald trump its aim repeatedly and constantly blown apart as a theory on the case by these months and months and months long investigations and maybe it's the fact they take so long to wrap up, that we forget sort of the charge, the accusation, the smears but aaron blake did a good job early this morning pulling out the ten times donald trump accused jim comey leaking classified information. you had a security clearance. i had a security clearance. i'm sure jim comey had a higher security cliernsearance but bei accused of leaking classified information is the worst thing you can say. >> yes, and it didn't happen. i would urge everyone to read the oig report, inspect general's report, because it gives an incredible insight to how the government works and how incredibly meticulous deep state is about secrets and classifications. the other thing is it exposes the fact a secret doesn't come underlined in yellow. men and women make

determinations of what is classified or not classified. all of the memos he made a decision whether it was classified or not, known foreign nationals, secret or top secret. it's interesting how people make these decisions. and the other thing is all of the top level people at the fbi told him to keep contemporaneous notes. why? the president was doing extraordinary things. let's not lose sight of the big picture. he's keeping notes because the president is asking him to violate the law. the president is asking him to go easy on mike flynn. the president is reacting in ways that are unstable, unnatural, ahistorical. he wants to keep a note of that. >> you know, paul butler, i'm reminded too jim comey has been on every side of the political punching bag, right? i mean when he came out and didn't -- wasn't going to prosecute hillary clinton but talked about her conduct, donald trump celebrated him. when he refused to see to it to

let flynn go, they fired him. there have been so many people ensnared in comey's conduct on all sides of the question that i don't know if that makes him post partisan, nonpartisan, beyond partisan. what is the state of jim comey today? >> the inspector general clearly thinks comey has a big mouth. this is the second inspector general report that is critical of him. the first the inspector general says he should have never had that press conference a few days before the 2016 election making those accusations, reopening the investigation against hillary clinton. that was the wrong way to handle that. here again, the inspector general thinks comey handled this the wrong way. in fact, nicolle, but for comey's actions, we probably would not have had a special counsel. we probably would not know all of the evidence of trump's criminality that the mueller report reveals. so i think in the long run,

history will judge mueller -- will judge comey as, yes, having a big melt but in some ways being responsible for a little bit of transparency and accountability in the trump administration. >> ashley parker, i asked you before about how having this sort of doj fight on his hands seemed to benefit trump and his supporters. it certainly helped with programming at another news network during primetime hours. i wonder what the opposite of that looks like. does trump, we know he asked don mcgahn look into how he would process jim comey and hillary clinton, mcghan served as sort of a guardrail. what is the war on justice 2.0 now that he's got an ally like bill barr there? now that we have some of these investigations winding up, does trump take his toys and go home, lit jim comey live his life? doesn't seem very trumpian. >> sure, it doesn't. that's a great question. we don't exactly know and there is a big difference between trump's rhetoric and his tweets

and the potential power he has as president of the united states to either overtly order an investigation or to encourage a culture where his subordinates investigate people who he think are the deep state rivals working against him. i think you can be sure we will continue to see sort of imperpetuity, anti-comey tweets and states and dements and gaggles and potentially chants at rallies whenever the mood strikes the president. the question is if he stops at rhetoric or tries to look to a now very friendly department of justice from that point of view and push it further. it is notable, again, as you said, this ig's report does exonerate comey on the president's claim that he leaked confidential information. >> harry litman, i wonder if you can just speak to sosht of the

wear and tear, i mean, adam goldman has a story a couple of days ago about andy mccabe's legal fate still dangling in the air. jim comey today, his day, whatever he had planned, i'm sure was altered by this ig report. there's an ongoing ig investigation and another one out of the u.s. attorney's office, i think out of connecticut, into the origins of the russian investigation. there are still -- there's still a long tale to all of the attacks and smears and calls for politically motivated investigations by donald trump. what does that look like? what are we not seeing? what does that look like behind the scenes? >> it looks bad and it's really true, perhaps as ashley said for political reasons n. a sense the war is over with the delivery of the mueller report but trump wants to keep fighting for political reasons, and because it's expedient to have certain enemies and it's true, as long as this goes on, if mccabe is indicted, comey might be a

witness, lisa page might be a witness. you have the department continuing to be ribbon and in the public eye also is kind of capital already overextended still being dispensed with this fighting on behalf of trump against the deep state. now here i agree with paul, comey will -- history will record him rightly as bending the rules when he decided but he will record them as having it's a good thing he did it here and these memos came to light. but nevertheless, it provokes a whole new round of trumpian rhetoric that plays well on the campaign rallies and continues to cause crises at the department of justice. >> i will go without putting you on the spot, this is your beat, what is sort of happening behind the scenes that we don't see with the ongoing sort of legal limbo andy mccabe is in, the disposition of today's ig report but the ongoing investigations

and origins of the russian probe, what is the legal status of the people you mentioned like pete strzok and lisa page? >> that's a big question, nicolle. >> take your time. >> i think andy's fate will be decided soon. andy mccabe's fate will be decided soon. i think the justice department has to be ringing their hands over this. this would be an extraordinary decision to indict andy mccabe. typically what you see in these type of internal investigations at the fbi, doj, dea, these people are not prosecuted, their fired, right. that's what happened to andy. it's very rare for somebody in fact to be prosecuted for making a false statement to the ig. just today the inspector general's office released a damning report on this senior doj figure had been looking at porn on his computers and lied about it to the ig. of course, that person wasn't prosecuted. so i suspect the deputy attorney general and others involved in this decision are weighing all of that, plus this case is

politically tainted by trump. you know -- >> since i have you and i just remembered as you're sitting there, it is your byline on the story about andy mccabe opening the investigation into whether or not donald trump is actually a russian agent around comey's firing. what is it you think went through his mind when he saw donald trump at the g7 last week behind closed doors making the case and really skewing and repeating putin propaganda about getting russia back into the g8? seems like the kind of concerns law enforcement had in the first place. >> probably retriggered his ptsd from those days. but we will have to see where this goes. i want to make a point on comey's legacy. we've had two big investigations. one, the handling of the hillary clinton email investigation, and now this investigation on his handling of the memos. we've got a third one coming up on the carter page five that he

will be heavily involved in. to date, yes, comey made decisions. he's been faulted for those decisions. but in each of the ig investigations he's been found essentially to be a credible witness. and i think mueller found him to be a credible witness too. so nobody's questioning -- nobody's questioning comey's honesty and i think that's matters the most to comey. it's one of the things that matters most to comey. i think so far that particular aspect of his legacy has not been damaged. but we've got another big part, another big part of his legacy coming up with the inspector general's investigation of the carter page five and how that was handled. >> it always continues, never ends. thank you all so much for starting us off. after the break, we turn to hurricane dorian with my friend al roker. that storm now expected to grow into a cat 4 hurricane as it hits florida over the weekend. and donald trump's love affa affair with the presidential power of pardon hits the brick

wall of congressional oversight, with democrats vowing to investigate a president who sees himself as above the law. and, honey, they shrunk the democratic field for president. half as many candidates will appear on stage for the next democratic debate. but is it good news for the democrats there will only be ten? we'll ask our panel. is just a button. that a speaker is just a speaker. or - that the journey can't be the destination. most people haven't driven a lincoln. it's the final days of the lincoln summer invitation even. right now, get 0% apr on all lincoln vehicles plus no payments for up to 90 days. only at your lincoln dealer. plus no payments for up to 90 days. ♪ sleep this amazing? that's a zzzquilpure zzzs sleep. our liquid has a unique botanical blend, while an optimal melatonin level means no next-day grogginess. zzzquil pure zzzs. naturally superior sleep.

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back with breaking news on hurricane dorian, now expected to grow to a category 4 hurricane before hitting florida this labor day weekend. we're happy to have our friend al roker today with us for the

very latest. al, big one, right? >> it really is. the florida governor is now state of emergency for all counties in florida, and we're going to see one in just a moment. but right now tropical force winds extend out 90 miles an hour at the center of hurricane-force winds, 15 miles from the center of the right now dorian is category 1 storm. 85-mile-per-hour winds, moving northwest at 13 miles per hour. we will get an update from the national hurricane center in about 34 minutes but here's the latest track we have right now. currently a category 1 storm. becomes a category 3 storm tomorrow morning. 115-mile-per-hour winds. now, it's got nothing to really slow it down. it's over the warm waters of the atlantic. there are no land masses that are going to sheer it apart. it comes across the northern bahamas by 8:00 a.m. as category 4 storm, 130-mile-per-hour winds, makes landfall some time around early monday morning to mid-morning. here's what's interesting, this is the national hurricane center track, brings you into central

florida. we put in the american model, it makes landfall in central florida coming more in line with the national hurricane center track on monday. the european model has moved a little further south. look where it's coming in, miami and later on tuesday. and depending on what happens, these models keep changing over these areas so we will continue to be watching this. i mean, this system and the effects of it, we know we're going to be looking at catastrophic winds at this point. probably a very high possibility of hurricane-force wind gusts by monday afternoon moving into central florida. rainfall right now, heaviest rain kind of following the european model, the heaviest rain for the south of florida. but again very changeable. we still have not had the consensus of these models so we could see this very heavy rain moving back into florida and ski four see four to eight inches or up

to 12 inches of rain. it's still a very changeable situation. >> so i worked for a florida governor who rode out every hurricane in the emergency operations center and i rode some of those out with him. this to me seems like an extraordinary kind of storm to prepare for. what do our viewers in florida do? >> the problem is, you've got really the entire state in play right now. west coast, east coast, south, all the way to the panhandle. and so i think this is one of those things where they're going to have to be very nimble, fema will have to be very nimble, they're going to have to be prepared to deploy. one model, latest model in europe brings it up along the eastern seaboard all during the week. really stay tuned because everybody's got to be prepared to evacuate, to listen to their emergency managers. >> it's a scary situation. we're lucky to have you, thank you, al. it's always a treat to talk to you. it's never good news but always a treat to have you. thank you very much, thank you. >> i want to go back to ashley parker for how the president is

managing the storm. ashley, we learned the president is canceling his trip to poland this weekend. will he send the vice president instead. obviously he's seeing the same forecast al roker is. >> yeah, the president by all accounts seems to be taking this storm very seriously and canceling the trip is perhaps the biggest indication of that. he's going to stay here. he's going to monitor the response. he's been talking about the response. it is worth noting that this hurricane is burying down in the wake of president trump diverting some money from fema and from storm management over to divorces at the southern border, which has prompted an outcry from democrats. but he is staying in the country and that matters a lot. one other thing in general, the way the president sometimes treats these storms, it is a moment for him to be a commander in chief and a chief executive and leader, and he can do that but he also sometimes views them

as a voyeur. if you look at his tweets, they will often have a superlative tone where he will say, wow, biggest winds ever. as if these watching the weather channel like the rest of us. and also remembering he's the president who has to imagine and handle this response. >> ashley, it would be unfair to leave out he does not view all victims or those threatened by storms the same. this is his tweet about florida, hurricane dorian looks like it will hit florida late sunday. be prepared, please follow state and federal instructions. s had him on puerto rico. puerto rico is one of the most corrupt places on earth. their political system is incompetent or corrupt. congress approved billions of dollars last time, more than any place it's gotten and it was sent to crooked polls. no good. and jon meacham would agree, truly unprecedented to attack americans in the path of a dangerous storm.

>> that's right, and the president and his government has been criticized for their handling of the previous hurricane and storm that basically devastated puerto rico. and there's criticism they didn't pay as much attention. you can take that and look at storms or you can even look at a bit more broadly that there's a criticism of the president that he is sort of views himself as the leader just for the people who support him. by that view he's much more likely to be sympathetic to victims in, frankly, a red state or red city. in his public statements, you will see that. in some of these other districts that are not republican districts, he's much more likely -- take the city of baltimore where he went after rat and rodent infested where he treats them as if they're a third world country that may need help but not part of the united states over which he presides and you also see that in storm coverage with him. >> it is truly one of the more

remarkable aspects of a remarkable presidency. ashley parker, thank you so much for your reporting and spending some time with us. after the break, the white house trots out the trump was just being funny when he said pardons were on the table for anyone who illegally builds his border wall defense. but democrats in congress are not buying it. along with support, chantix is proven to help you quit. with chantix you can keep smoking at first and ease into quitting. chantix reduces the urge so when the day arrives, you'll be more ready to kiss cigarettes goodbye. when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. stop chantix and get help right away if you have changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, depressed mood, suicidal thoughts or actions, seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking, or life-threatening allergic and skin reactions.

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i never want anybody to be above the law but the pardons are a very positive thing for a president. the question was asked yesterday about pardons with respect to paul man afort. i said i'm not taking anything off the table. we're looking at a lot of different pardons for a lot of different people. some of these soldiers are people that have fought hard and long and when they fight, sometimes they get really treated very unfairly. the power to pardon is a beautiful thing. you have to get it right. you have to get the right people. >> who says that stuff out loud? donald trump does because he

loves a good, old-fashioned presidential pardon. but now that his affinity for circumventing the rule of law is colliding with his key campaign promise, they're vowing to do something. trump assured aides woe pardon them of any legal wrongdoing in the course of fast-tracking the border wall have red lights flashing in congress. "the post" quotes david cicilline, member of the democratic leadership in the house judiciary committee, as saying, quote, sadly, this is just one more instance of a president who undermines the rule of law and behaves as if he's kaa king and not governed the laws of this country. he's not a king. he's accountable. and i think it adds to the ongoing proceeding before the judiciary committee as we consider to recommend articles of impeachment against the president. trump denied he made any assurances but voices from inside the administration are undermining that claim. from the article, quote, a white house official spoke anonymously

in advance of the report did not deny it and said trump is joking when he makes such statements about pardons. joining me and rick, jason johnson, politics editor for the root, waneta from the center for american congress action fund and author of "everything trump touches dies," rick wilson. i have to start with you. these are not funny people but when rosenstein talks about the 25thant, ha, ha, he was being silly and funny, it was sarcasm, stupid reporters. and when trump talks about pardoned, which was played, there's more where that came from. he loves the pardon as much as he loves the helicopter, he's ha, ha joking. >> this is a man with zero sense of humor because he has zero interspegs. he's not kidding or joking of the he's looking for short cuts to circumvent the law. the constitution, whatever it is, to do something as a political stunt to feed his base

because they have to see their wall get built. they're desperate to have the wall built. trump knows that's the single thing in his administration that most of the people on the lower end of his scale understand. they understand they're going to get their wall and mexico's going to pay for it. they're not and now they're probably not getting a wall. they're getting a fence and trump is nervous about that. it's a promise he's broken, among many, that will be something that even the slowest children in the class are going to realize he was b.s.'ing from the very start. >> this is a serious point though because even the viewers at fox news had sort of fantasy and lie trump tells at rallies, it's being built blown apart by shep smith yesterday. >> the president has made border security a mainstay of his message date back to the campaign with build that wall and mexico will pay for it, though that last promise is long gone. so far despite the president's claims to the contrary, there is no new wall. existing barriers had been

replaced with new ones. same span, not new place. the total of repaired barrier is about 60 miles along that 2,000-mile border. the president also said in the tweet that the wall is going up rapidly. it is not. as we just reported, there is no new wall. only replacement for walls which were in need of repair or upgrade. those are the facts. >> how about them apples? >> how dare someone on fox news tell their viewers the truth. >> thing is this is honestly a line this the sand for trump where he's feeling pressure from not just traditional media sources but fox news, calling out a single mile of his wall has been built. opinion considering the polls are trending negatively and the trade war he didn't need to do, this is the one thing he's clinging tight to so he's willing to lie, do anything illegal, anything corrupt, tell his staff to break the law and

say, don't worry, i got your back. that's what he's doing right now. it's ridiculous. >> i was never into trump's political promises. they weren't for me. i didn't like them. i didn't vote for him. but if you were into those things, he sucks at giving them to you. >> yes. and going back to the promise he's making to his internal staff, michael cohen, michael cohen, michael cohen, right? why would you ever believe this man? >> he's on the hvac team in prison now. >> yeah! >> think twice. >> he's making license plates. why would anyone in donald trump's orbit or universe believe he's going to have your back? that's the first thing. second thing is this, i really believe a lot of his supporters they ultimately don't care. as much as donald trump lied, has shown to be lying over and over again, his base of support, that 32% to 35% of americans who absolutely love him, they love donald trump symbolically and anything he doesn't accomplish

that he promises is going to be blamed on democrats. it's going to be blamed on the squad. it will be blamed on somebody else. he won't face consequences for these kinds of laws and eventually when he runs in 2020 and going up against a democrat and there's no new wall being built, he will just say it's nancy pelosi and democrats that kept him from doing it, re-elect me and i will make sure the wall gets built. >> the wall though to me is sort of -- everything about trump manifests in the wall. when republicans were asked to make the wall happen, he shut down the government over it, he got no wall. it illustrates because it's a tangible thing. i think the damage he's doing on the world stage is generational and lasting, keeps me up at night. the wall, i don't think anyone thinks a wall will keep people out. but the inability to build the thing they want is to me the trump story. >> the wall is symbolic and

medieval -- >> especially trump's wall. black and pointed and black. >> yes. and the wall is symbolic and will reveal he hasn't been able to accomplish anything. i want to go back to the pardon power and make a wonky point about it. >> please. >> the reason he lofves the pardon power is kind of a mistake, it's one of the reimmediatette powers the president has. it was a mistake of the founders. they didn't want to do anything kingly. and would i argue of all of these constitutional forum, the pardon power should be constitutionally remedied, the way congress approves nominees the president makes, congress should have to approve pardons the president makes. it should not be an unremediated power. >> i was going to talk about i president who doesn't read his peb should be so obsessed with a wall but you're smarter be so i think we should stay there. if you look at pardons and who he gave them to, george w. bush did not pardon scooter libby.

donald trump, i'm not sure if he ever met him, did. he doesn't even view it the way the reluctant framers might have. he views it as a good -- like the way he probably hands out cuff links from the oval. here's some chum for my political patrons. >> the pardon power in the most benign way is about sympathy, it's about mercy of the the quality of mercy -- >> it's about equaling the scales of justice. >> but he uses it as a quid pro quo. even in "the washington post" when it says you do what i will say and i will pardon you, that's a malfeasance quid pro quo right there for the whole world to see. >> and it's not an immunity tote emfor "survivor." you can't hand it out and say keep doing all of these things. at some point michael comey even realizes to break the law donald trump wants you to break, you can't do the things he wants you to break it for. >> and asking anyone who walks into the white house to do his

bidding every day, is there anything left to sacrifice? >> how is any human being that can walk on two legs and reads the basic english language, walks in and says donald trump will pardon me if i do something illegal or wrong? how is paul manafort doing these days? how is michael cohen doing? trump is a utterly faceless person. >> and i was heartened to see democrats add this to their impeachment proceedings. what poext proceedings? >> it hasn't happened. to put together maybe a file to think about it. that is literally hypothetically all they have done. and it's interesting because we had more news this week, up to 135, 138 democrats who say they want to do it, polling is in their favor. top four democratic nominees are leading trump by eight to ten digits. the political consequence argument, which is what nancy pelosi and insiders have been using for months and months is no longer the case so why aren't

they moving forward? i don't know, other than cowards. >> and there's going to be immense pressure when they come back to recess to do something about it, something so blatant being done as abuse of power can't be ignored. >> the dangling of pardons was detailed in mueller's reports. and i understand that an argument was made pelosi needed more information. these dangling of pardons have been reported in "the new york times" and "the washington post." it's credible. it's happening in realtime. >> and it can'ti be ignored. >> we hope. >> and we put too much -- dragging us in another direction. >> it's okay. >> we put way too much weight on the mueller report, expecting that the mueller report would be kind of lay out of terrain, lay out all of the malfeasance the president has done, obstruction and collusion. there are so many more points for an impeachment of the president based on his daily and

weekly behavior rather than the things he's done in the mueller report and congress needs to think about it in that light, not just in the details of the mueller report. >> i guess my point, rick, is they do neither. >> i don't have an answer. >> in that case after the break, the next democratic debate will feature half as many candidates inside a shrinking democratic field. less. three generations of clothes cleaned in one wash. anybody seen my pants? #1 stain and odor fighter, #1 trusted. it's got to be tide. let's get down to business. the business of atlanta on monday... ... cincinnati on tuesday. ...philly on wednesday. ...and thursday back to cincinnati . modernized comfort inns and suites have been refreshed because when your business keeps going, our business is you.

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and i don't add trup the years.s. but what i do count on... is boost® delicious boost® high protein nutritional drink has 20 grams of protein, along with 26 essential vitamins and minerals. boost® high protein. be up for life. . so brand new today, the third democrat ig presidential debate is set in stone. and this afternoon, we find out where on stage they'll be standing. da, da, da. here's the ten candidates who made it from left to right, klobuchar, booker, buttigieg, sanders, biden and warren facing off at center stage. then it's harris, yang, o'rourke and castro. it will be just one night, september 12th, over three hours, wowza. and if that sounds like a bit of a relief to you, you're not alone. quote, three-quarters of likely

iowa caucuses said in a des moines register survey they wish some or most of the candidates would drop out. only 18% saying they like considering all of the possibilities. the table is back. you're giggling so you go first. >> look, needed to trim the field for a while now. it's hard to focus on making the selection when it should be a referendum on donald trump when you've got -- >> i hear that. >> a lot of distractions, people that were never going to make the cut. as a weak party structure, there's nobody in the democratic party that can call up and say, yeah, amy time to go, or, pete time to go. it's tough for them, but i think the faster it narrows, the quicker you get to candidates who are going to start framing out who's going to make the case and the ref rend against donald trump. >> i think on top of that the time associatesed with the debates are used more wisely because right now what you have is 60-second sound bytes where there's like stunted conversation. >> and i like her.

i'm just saying when everyone's there, you got to give them all equal time. >> got to give them equal time. but also you're not hearing anything of substance. what i heard after the last round of debates is that people walked away feeling depressed. they didn't enjoy it. >> they're not getting anything positive out of these. so setting a positive narrative is prime opportunity right now going into this next debate with only ten people on stage. >> i've been reminded -- you all know my position for whomever you all pick, but that there are serious policy debates to sort out. then there is the ka isto make against trump. with two stages, it's just too many people. >> look, i've always liked the sort of golden corral grab your bag stuff. because i think the intensity that some people have for harris or even yang, you're getting people who wouldn't generally pay attention who are paying attention because they may like some of those candidates who are

sort of near the bottom of the poll. what i do think we have to be very cognizant of in houston, we are not going to get the fight that i think everybody wants. i still think we're one or two debates away from before warren takes a swipe at biden. the only people who have really attacked have been harris and castro. so i think we're going to have another long policy night and a bunch of short speeches. >> i have to say the idea of spoiling for a fight and looking for a debate as this fighting mechanism, i agree with you, is a bad idea. that's why people don't like them. that's why they don't function. they should be a policy referendum. i do want to make one statement about kirsten gillibrand when she left the race. she did it early, she did it generously, like, nothing became of her leaving. like let's wean the field down so people can have a

conversation on stage rather than kind of a fist fight which is not good for anybody. >> after gillibrand's announcement i wonder who's going to see that and say that's a viable pathway because she has become a bellweather for pointing out missojony and lifting up women's productive rights. and so who all saw her message yesterday and is going to follow that path. >> and i know there's nothing democrats hate more than advice about their primary from -- >> of course. >> hang a lantern around. let me just pre-offend. but i guess i watch it, and i watch bullock and delaney and i'm like, oh, yeah, they're better than trump. so just to your point about the field, every one of them is better than what we have right now. so i kind of -- i feel like the push and pull of why did it have to winnow out, do you think the timing is right for the winnowing? >> i think the timing is right because, basically, if you can't make the debate, if you don't

make the second round like "american idol," it's not going to end your career. whoever the final three people are going to be will take up. you know, the new woke beto that we've been talking about. andrew yang -- it's not the universal basic income. it's yang talking about sort of the loss of jobs to auto misation. i think there are points that some of the lower tier candidates are going to make. >> it's like dating where you're like i'll take his mother. [ laughter ] >> i don't know anything about that. [ laughter ] >> serious question. do you think that democrats are taking to heart sort of this idea that the thing that sort of fires up democrats the most and that brings along as many independents is taking the fight to trump? or do you think there's still sort of a desire and an itch to hash out health care and other issues? >> i think both should happen. i think it's yes and, right? because without hashing out those issues what, new are you

introducing to american public that they can get excited about, but also, remember, i think democrats need to remember there is no guarantee that the energy from '18 is necessarily going to carry forward. so you have to have a positive vision that's going to motivate people while also trying to persuade those independents or conservatives who just can't stand trump. >> i think they only went through to buttigieg. but they show him even beating -- >> i think that's why it's so important to focus a referendum on donald trump. i've sat behind the glass in so many focus groups i feel like 500 years old. but policy tlections only goes so far. donald trump's policy fit on a trucker hat. barack obama's was one word on a poster. nobody remembered any specific policy. you go into a focus group. you can put a gun to their head and they're not going to say, by the way on page 647 of elizabeth warren's health care plan -- they will never say that.

people are voting about the big personality question, and, again, it's that referendum. so right now all the democrats are more pailatable to the american people than donald trump. in the electoral college game, it's a little different. but i think the sins of the administration and the ills this guy has performed on this country, they've got this case laid out on a platter. it's time to eat. >> it's ultimately it's a moral argument. but you have to have some details too. and part of the flaw of going into too many policy details is if the democrats don't win the senate, it's not going to matter on page 27 of your health care plan. you have to actually get the top job. >> all right. unfortunately we have to sneak in our last break. don't go anywhere. we will be right back. $9.95 at my age?

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my thanks to rick, jason, and to you for watching. it does it for this hour, i'm nicole. "mtp daily" with chuck todd starts now. ♪ if it's thursday, we are tracking the big storm hurricane dorian strengthens and heads towards florida amid new signs the winds are shifting by the way, politically on republicans and the issue of the climate crisis. plus, a doj watchdog rebukes comey, but it also debunks trump. why the president is once again lashing out at his